Red is fading in West Bengal

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

The elections is West Bengal continue to throw surprises. Six months back nobody other than a certain Mamata Banerjee believed that the Red bastion could be shattered in West Bengal. Proving that the Lok Sabha polls were no fluke TMC and Congress won 13 out of 16 municipalities in the state. This comes as a severe blow to the Left leader who have been engaged in a blame game within the party since the humiliating loss in the Lok Sabha Polls.

If some analysts thought the Lok Sabha results were an isolated case they better open their eyes. Bengal not only voted with the country in the parliamentary polls it also voted against its egoistic leaders. The people voted against leaders who could not bring in development form the centre and only raised the decibel levels in the Parliament. People voted out those leaders who always blamed the centre to hide their inefficiency.

Left Front may not have yet seen its worst days, the Assembly Elections in 2011 might see State Government without a 'Left Hand Drive'. In the last three decades of its rule or rather misrule in the state the only thing that the party did was strengthen its network and develop its own structure. The development of the state took a back seat as Left leaders did not foresee a day when they would have to pay the price of their misdeeds.

People around the country never understood why a government which never improved the living standard of the people was being voted in time and again. The truth is many people in Bengal could never imagine what a non-Left government would be. Left got an extended life span post the liberalisation era due to this confusion. What Bengal needed was a trigger and Nandigram exposed the ugly face of left where criminals were sent of rampage on innocent villagers.

It's not certain if a non-Left government would bring in change in the state which is starving for development but one thing is certain people have had enough of Left. The leaders who had taken people and their emotions for granted are finally facing the music. As former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson has rightly said “He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery”